Hell Has Frozen Over

The second (or maybe third) worst team in NFL history, is going to the superbowl.

Why do I say the second (or maybe third) worst?

Well, they are the oldest franchise, and have never been in a superbowl for one. in the pre-superbowl era they never won a league championship; and as of today, have won their only conference championship in 110 years...

Though to be fair they have won their division five times, this year being the only time since 1975.

They have the second most seasons at .500 or under (behind the New Orleans Saints), the fewest playoff appearances (it was the second fewest, but the Saints have been on a roll these past few seasons), and until this year, haven't made it past the first round of the playoffs in the superbowl era. They have finished last in the league more than anyone except the Saints.

The only reason I list them as second worst, is because the Saints have lost even more, and won even less. They're maybe third, because of course, this year the Detroit Lions proved it was possible to lose all 16 regular season games; a feat no other team has ever managed (Tampa Bay lost 14 when the season was only 14 games long however).

Arizona is where good players get drafted to, so they can can build their numbers up to ask for more money from their next team; and where formerly good, washed up players go instead of retiring, when their ex-wives need more alimony.

Arizona went 9-7 this year, and are in the superbowl; when New England, at 11-5 did not even make the playoffs.

Such is football. Any given Sunday.

So how are Arizonans feeling right now?

It's not joy, or happiness... though I 'spose the Cards few hundred fans will feel that a bit later... No, it's UTTER SHOCK AND AMAZEMENT.

David Poyer?

So this guys name came up on my Amazon recommendations, and I'd never heard of him. Apparently he's on book 11 of a very popular naval fiction series featuring the main character Dan Lenson.

Since I love naval fiction, I'm surprised I'd never heard of him. Knowing my readership however, I'm willing to bet some of you have.

So, should I give him a read?

While I'm at it, as a Sharpe lover, should I bother with Cornwells Saxon Chronicles?

Why I have a great deal of respect for Camille Paglia

Because although she is a liberal, she is mistaken, not either foolish nor craven, nor pharasiacal. She is intellectually honest, and generally rigorous in her thought, rather than dogmatic or reactionary.

I disagree with her analysis, and in some cases her principles; but she respects facts, and THINKS about things rather than simply feeling and reacting; and then she writes about them, generally quite well (though sometimes she's a bit overblown).

She is the type of liberal you can actually debate with.

I present two extended quotes from her most recent responses to reader mail on the RIDICULOUSLY liberal web site (which still features some excellent writing by the way) Salon (it's four pages, these are from page 2):

I am a conservative lesbian living in New York. I would love you to address how the Fairness Doctrine has become a viable possibility for the liberal agenda, given that it is simply modern-day censorship, and also taking into account the undeniably left-leaning media. How can the left not see its hypocrisy?

Kara McGee

If there's anything that demonstrates the straying of the Democratic Party leadership from basic liberal principles, it's this blasted Fairness Doctrine -- which should be fiercely opposed by all defenders of free speech. Except when national security is at risk, government should never be involved in the surveillance of speech or in measuring the ideological content of books, movies or radio and TV programs.

Broadcasters must adhere to reasonable FCC regulations restricting obscenity, but despite the outlandish claims of Democrats like Sen. Charles Schumer, there is no analogy whatever between pornography and political opinion. Nor do privately owned radio stations have any obligation to be politically "balanced." They are commercial enterprises that follow the market and directly respond to audience demand. The Fairness Doctrine is bullying Big Brother tyranny, full of contempt for the very public it pretends to protect.

As a fan of AM radio since childhood, I adore the proliferation of political talk shows spurred by Rush Limbaugh's pioneering rise to national syndication in the late 1980s. It represented a maturation of the late-night coast-to-coast radio programs that I had been listening to in the 1970s, such as Herb Jepko (broadcasting from Salt Lake City), Long John Nebel (from New York) and Larry King (from Miami).

However, I do lament the gradual disappearance of small, quirky local shows due to the trend toward national syndication. And I often get bored and impatient with the same arch-conservative message being drummed out 24/7. But let's get real: Liberals have been pathetic flops on national radio -- for reasons that have yet to be identified. Air America, for example, despite retchingly sycophantic major media coverage, never got traction and has dwindled to a humiliating handful of markets. The Democrats are the party of Hollywood, for heaven's sake -- so what's their problem in mastering radio?

Instead of bleating for paternalistic government intervention, liberals should get their own act together. Radio is a populist medium where liberals come across as snide, superior scolds. One can instantly recognize a liberal caller to a conservative show by his or her catty, obnoxious tone. The leading talk radio hosts are personalities and entertainers with huge rhetorical energy and a bluff, engaging manner. Even the seething ranters can be extremely funny. Last summer, for example, I laughed uproariously in my car when WABC's Mark Levin said furiously about Katie Couric, "What do these people do? Open fortune cookies and read them on air?"

The best hosts combine a welcoming master of ceremonies manner with a vaudevillian brashness. Liberal imitators haven't made a dent on talk radio because they think it's all about politics, when it isn't. Top hosts are life questers and individualists who explore a wide range of thought and emotion and who skillfully work the mike like jazz vocalists. Talk radio is a major genre of popular culture that deserves the protection accorded to other branches of the performing and fine arts. Liberals, who go all hushed and pious at Hays Code censorship in classic Hollywood, should lay off the lynch-mob mentality. Keep the feds out of radio!

Have you noticed how much the call for combating global warming crusade has in common with how we got into the Iraq war?

In both cases, there are "experts" who tell us that evidence justifying action is undeniable. They say, "The risk of doing nothing is too great for us to do nothing." And as a fallback position they say, "Even if we're wrong, we'll still be doing some good in the world."

Kind of makes me think man-made CO2 emissions will turn out to be the biggest case of nonexistent WMD since Saddam Hussein's nukes. (Or maybe even bigger!) What do you think?

Jim Carroll

Wonderful letter! I became a vocal opponent of the onrushing Iraq incursion when I was shocked by the flimsiness of evidence presented by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in 2003. Similarly, I have been highly skeptical about the claims for global warming because of their overreliance on speculative computer modeling and because of the woeful patchiness of records for world temperatures before the 20th century.

In the 1980s, I was similarly skeptical about media-trumpeted predictions about a world epidemic of heterosexual AIDS. And I remain skeptical about the media's carelessly undifferentiated use of the term "AIDS" for what is often a complex of wasting diseases in Africa. We should all be concerned about environmental despoliation and pollution, but the global warming crusade has become a hallucinatory cult. Until I see stronger evidence, I will continue to believe that climate change is primarily driven by solar phenomena and that it is normal for the earth to pass through major cooling and warming phases.

And here's two more from back in 2007:

I know you are a Democrat, but you certainly have very strong libertarian opinions. I was wondering where you stand on the Second Amendment. I'm a registered Independent who, the older I get, leans more toward libertarianism. Ideally there would never have been a Bill of Rights, and all freedoms would be understood to be the rights of every American. But since we have one, the rights listed, to me at least, are sacrosanct -- all of them, not just the first and third through the tenth!

I am pro-gun ownership. I have never been arrested, and the sum total of my criminal activity amounts to a pair of moving violations when I was still in my 20s. However, since I live in New York City, I need to either be rich and famous or navigate a confusing legal process if I want to acquire a permit.

We are always reminded, not least by Mayor Bloomberg (whom I generally like and voted for) that illegal guns kill. The problem is, there is no real means to get a gun legally, and those in the world who are anti-gun want to make it harder. The thing that leaves me scratching my head is when people say, Mayor Mike among 'em, that we need stricter laws to crack down on illegal guns! Exactly what needs to be in place to make an illegal gun more illegal!

I know there are bigger issues right now facing our presidential candidates, but this speaks to personal freedom as much as any other issue. Just wondering how you see it.

Dave Hunt
Brooklyn

As a Salon columnist (dating back to the founding of Salon in 1995), I have tried to provide a forum for defenders of the Second Amendment to make their case. The Northeastern major media, which remain heavily liberal, rarely permit these voices to be heard.

I do not own guns and have no interest in them. (Swords, those Homeric and chivalric emblems, have always attracted me more.) But as a libertarian, I read the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights as granting to private citizens the right to bear arms against the potential abuses of a government turned tyrannous. Furthermore, should police authority evaporate after a cataclysm of storm, flood, earthquake or terrorism, citizens have a right to defend their families and property against criminals and looters. If food and water are in short supply over a protracted period, expect predators and violence.

The horrendous problem of illegal guns now rampant among the urban underclass cannot be solved by depriving all American citizens of their Second Amendment rights. Major cities must address their internal problems, which include improving public education and vocational training, creating job-rich public works projects, and instituting on-the-street neighborhood policing. The major media, concentrated in their metropolises, should stop extrapolating their local issues to the nation as a whole.

Just wondering what your thoughts are on the global warming issue. Have you seen the Al Gore movie? Any thoughts on the current debate on climate science?

Many thanks,
April
Vancouver

Oh, great, here comes the hornet's nest!

As a native of upstate New York, whose dramatic landscape was carved by the receding North American glacier 10,000 years ago, I have been contemplating the principle of climate change since I was a child. Niagara Falls, as well as the even bigger dry escarpment of Clark Reservation near Syracuse, is a memento left by the glacier. So is nearby Green Lakes State Park, with its mysteriously deep glacial pools. When I was 10, I lived with my family at the foot of a drumlin -- a long, undulating hill of moraine formed by eddies of the ancient glacier melt.

Geology and meteorology are fields that have always interested me and that I might well have entered, had I not been more attracted to art and culture. (My geology professor in college, in fact, asked me to consider geology as a career.) To conflate vast time frames with volatile daily change is a sublime exercise, bordering on the metaphysical.

However, I am a skeptic about what is currently called global warming. I have been highly suspicious for years about the political agenda that has slowly accrued around this issue. As a lapsed Catholic, I detest dogma in any area. Too many of my fellow Democrats seem peculiarly credulous at the moment, as if, having ground down organized religion into nonjudgmental, feel-good therapy, they are hungry for visions of apocalypse. From my perspective, virtually all of the major claims about global warming and its causes still remain to be proved.

Climate change, keyed to solar cycles, is built into Earth's system. Cooling and warming will go on forever. Slowly rising sea levels will at some point doubtless flood lower Manhattan and seaside houses everywhere from Cape Cod to Florida -- as happened to Native American encampments on those very shores. Human habitation is always fragile and provisional. People will migrate for the hills, as they have always done.

Who is impious enough to believe that Earth's contours are permanent? Our eyes are simply too slow to see the shift of tectonic plates that has raised the Himalayas and is dangling Los Angeles over an unstable fault. I began "Sexual Personae" (parodying the New Testament): "In the beginning was nature." And nature will survive us all. Man is too weak to permanently affect nature, which includes infinitely more than this tiny globe.

I voted for Ralph Nader for president in the 2000 election because I feel that the United States needs a strong Green Party. However, when I tried to watch Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" on cable TV recently, I wasn't able to get past the first 10 minutes. I was snorting with disgust at its manipulations and distortions and laughing at Gore's lugubrious sentimentality, which was painfully revelatory of his indecisive, self-thwarting character. When Gore told a congressional hearing last month that there is a universal consensus among scientists about global warming -- which is blatantly untrue -- he forfeited his own credibility.

Environmentalism is a noble cause. It is damaged by propaganda and half-truths. Every industrialized society needs heightened consciousness about its past, present and future effects on the biosphere. Though I am a libertarian, I am a strong supporter of vigilant scrutiny and regulation of industry by local, state and federal agencies. But there must be a balance with the equally vital need for economic development, especially in the Third World.

Here's a terrible episode from my region that made the news just last year. A bankrupt thermometer factory in Franklin Township, N.J., vacated its building in 1994 but ignored a directive to clean the premises of residual mercury toxins. There was a total failure of oversight and follow-through at the state and local levels. The result: In 2004, a daycare center opened in the renovated building and for two years subjected children and pregnant women to a dangerously high level of mercury vapors from the contaminated site.

The degree of permanent health effects on those children is still unknown. This kind of outrageous negligence should not be tolerated in a civilized nation.

How many liberals today would admit the facts here, and address them rationally?

Plus, she hates the French, and pisses off other liberals and feminists.

So I may disagree with her frequently, but I always respect her.

Some Enlightenment, Courtesy of Mark Steyn

This one is one of five, the rest are linked in the video sidebar:

This one is also one of five, the rest are linked in the video sidebar:

Windows 7 Beta Testing - Day One Observations

Well, I've been using the windows 7 beta all day, and I'm favorably impressed.

But first, the irritations; and surprisingly, they are few.

1. I hate the gigantic thickness of the status bar; that it can't be made any smaller, only larger, and that all the icons in it are so large.
   
   Even using the "small icons" property setting only shrinks them somewhat. The windowpane area (the program window indicators) becomes acceptable, but the notification area is still huge.
   
   I have a high resolution large screen because I like a high density of display information. This fixed large size irritates me.
   
   
2. I really dislike that it forces you to use the new style "jump menu" rather than the classic start menu. I hate the jump menu. I organize things hierarchically in my start menu so that everything can be easily and instantly accessed, and the jump menu prevents that.
   
   I realize this is pandering to the majority of users who develop these huge unwieldy single tier messes of start menus, but I'm not one of those users. I should have the option of using a cleaner, more logical layout, that takes up less screen room when used.
   
   
3. I don't care for the default folder view opening windows explorer; but I like it better than Vistas default view, because I can at least see all my drives and devices without clicking on anything... so it's better than vista but I still wish it would jsut let me go right to my drive list.
   
   
4. It's taken away some of my options for disabling windows stupidity, or working around irritations etc... Though to be fair it has made those things I can't disable or workaround less stupid and non-functional (like windows security center, which can't be disabled in windows 7, but can be in Vista); but it's MY machine, I still want the control.
   
   UPDATE: I can't disable security center completely; but I've found I CAN disable it's icon, by digging into advanced preferences in the notification area.
   

In literally every other way, I am happier than with vista. Everything is cleaner, smoother, faster, more responsive, better designed, clearer, and more logical than in vista (even my tweaked vista with all the crap stripped out).

The resource loading is about 20% lighter as well; and far less processes and threads are running by default.

I have to say, so far it's a big winner.

Windows 7 Beta Testing - Test one: upgrade from Vista

Well, just last week I got my laptop back from being wiped and serviced (bad fan caused mobo and hard drive failure). Coincidentally, the windows 7 public beta has been made available at the same time.

Since I've really got nothing to lose, I decided to try and install the Win 7 (64-bit) beta on my laptop. I'll let you all know how it goes, in liveblog format (indexed by minute)

The machine in question is an HP Pavillion DV9830, with a dual core 1.83ghz core 2 duo mobile, 4 gigs of DDR2, a discrete Nvidia 8600gs with 512m of discrete vram (feeding a 17" screen at 1440x900), a 320 gig 7200rpm hdd, discrete Intel A/B/G/N/bluetooth wireless, and a bluray drive.

00: Begin upgrade procedure. Installing as an upgrade not as clean, jsut to try it out. I'll probably reinstall as clean in a few days to see if it's any different.Also I had it update install files from the internet.

05: Compatability checking ran for five minutes, before starting copying windows files; listed as approximate 3gb. Accurate status and timing indicators (a miracle for MS)

12: File copy took approximately 7 minutes. Install began at the 12 minute mark.

24: "Gathering files and settings" portion of the install reporting 50% complete

27: "Gathering files..." complete, moving on to "Expanding Files"; but I get no status indication for about two minutes; when it comes alive at 2% and moves quickly from there.

30: Expanding went quick to 18% then stalled. Indicates 548mb of 3gb of data to decompress.

32: Rebooted without warning

34: Restarted in under two minutes to a respmnsive desktop. Restarted to the same 18% mark from before the reboot. Startup screen is considerably more attractive than vista or XP.

41: Expansion process finally shows a status indication after 7 minutes stuck at 18% with no status indicator

47: File expansion finally completed, but again became non responsive for about 2 minutes. Moved on to "installing features and updates".

51: Reboots again, without warning this time.

53: Again, reboots to a responsive desktop in under 2 minutes. 1:25 actually. It restarts the process then freezes with no status indication again.

57: Looks like it installed the proper video driver, as I'm now at full resolution after a few black flickers; but again, no status update or counter or taskbar change.

58: Status indicator finally changes from 18%, and it starts copying the over 300,000 "files and settings" it copied over earlier in the process.

78: Reboot

80: Responsive again, and the upgrade resumes with indicators around the 60% mark.

89: Reboot again, this time with a shutdown sound. Status indicators didn't change the entire 9 minutes.

91: Responsive again around 1:30 reboot time. I'm actually really impressed with the reboot times here, as compared to Vista.

92: The install process does a video performance test, then drops me into the interactive portion of the install, to enter my product key. It already has my localization settings since this is an upgrade, so I don't have to go through all that again.

93: 1 hour and 32 minutes from upgrade start 'til completed upgrade to a responsive desktop.

I have to say, this is the cleanest upgrade procedure I've seen for a windows version upgrade. It captured everything, didnt require any unusual input or workarounds, and it seems that almost all my settings were preserved and all my applications and data are working properly.

I have a concern over how long it took. 90 minutes is FAR longer than either Vista or XP took to either upgrade or install. Admittedly, they also dropped a lot of data on the floor in their upgrade processes, but it's still a long time.

Also, the inaccurate and non responsive status indicators could be an issue. At one point there was no update to the status for about 20minutes; and if I were less experienced I may have thought my system had frozen, and given it up as a bad job.

Unfortunately, inaccurate status indicators are something of a hallowed tradition in OS installs; and MS is no worse a violator than anyone else (actually I think Sun is FAR worse. Try installing Solaris 7 on a machine that isn't plugged into a functioning network with a DNS server and see how long it takes you to complete an install).

Now it's off to the races so to speak. I'll report on my findings as I go.

Interesting....

I disagree with some (not all) of their analysis and editorial slant, but still, interesting.

Here's the text of the piece.

It's frikken January, WTF?

It's 82 frikken degrees on my front porch right now.

The "official temp" is only 74, but my neighborhood is usually 5 to 10 degrees above the "official" temp for the area.

That might be because the "official temp" is taken from the top of a 10 foot high post over a bunch of ground vegetation on the top of a several hundred foot high hill.

Just maybe.

Meanwhile, it's still 20 below in Alaska, and most of southwestern Washington is under water.

Truly

The Unit Nukes the Fridge

The first two seasons of "The Unit" were really good fun. Interesting stories, decent technical accuracy, good writing and characterization... all in all the best fictional military show on broadcast TV (cable has done some interesting things as well of course).

Unfortunately, in season 3 you could say the show jumped the shark. It was still worth watching, but the quality of writing declined dramatically; and of course the writers strike killed season 3... though in retrospect, perhaps that was for the best.

Perhaps the change can be illustrated best in the change of theme music for season 3. Season 1 and 2 used a jody, "fired up", as the theme; and it suited the show perfectly. In season 3, they changed to an 80s'stastic, Richard Marks sounding cheese fest of a theme song, "walk the fire".

In the first two seasons, it was clear that the writers really understood the characters and situation. In the third season however, it seems that the writers had no concept of the characters they were writing, or the stories they were telling.

Frankly, most of the stories, and the actions the characters took and motivations they conveyed; simply didn't make sense.

The fourth season has only become worse. Looking at the credits, it seems that the entire writing staff from the first two seasons is gone; and at this oint the producers of the show are doing all the writing.

Not a good thing.

Today, the show definitively nuked the fridge.

For those who are unfamiliar with the phrase, it's derived from the scene in the most recent Indiana Jones movie, where Indy survives a nuclear blast by locking himself in a refrigerator, which is then blown several miles across the landscape.

By now I'm sure most of you know the term "jumped the shark"; as that moment when a show has peaked, and is clearly on a downhill slide. Well nuking the fridge is where that slide hits a cliff.

Basically, it's something so ridiculous and stupid, that it takes an otherwise good show or movie, and completely breaks the immersion. The whole story loses credibility, and you can't take the show seriously anymore.

I understand what the writers were doing; this same story has worked for other shows before; but those shows were not supposed to be gritty, realistic, military action dramas.

I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the episode yet; but honestly, if you're a fan of the show, it's just going to disappoint and irritate you.

Looking at the list of remaining episodes for the year on IMDB or Wikipedia gives me no confidence that they will be any better.

The show is currently on a contingency basis at episode 12; with no full season order for the remainder of the year. There are currently four episodes remaining in the can, with another 8 not under contract.

There's no announcement as to whether it's going to be cancelled next year; but it's not looking good for pickup.

Spreading the Message

Kevin had this linked up, and I thought, hmmm.... Kolbe and Beck will ignore it, much as they have when such arguments were presented to them innumerable other times by innumerable other people (As well as myself and my wife); but why not spread it around as far as possible.

Gran Torino - 2 sentence review

Most politically incorrect drama ever. Go see it now, and bring a tissue.

Mel

A Film School Moment

I was randomly trolling around the web, and came across a list of the biggest "Oscar snubs"; a subject 'pon which I have some very strong opinions (Paul Giamatti anyone?).

Anyway, one of the snubs listed, was Rosalind Russell for "His Girl Friday"; which if you haven't seen it, shame on you. Go, now, rent it, buy it, it's even downloadable or streamable from several services.

I believe I've mentioned my affection for the film before, as well as for Russell (when I discussed strong leading ladies; or the lack thereof in todays films); the chief reason being the amazing, fast, frenetic dialogue and interplay between her, and co-star Cary Grant.

The film has been cited by experts as having the most dialogue packed into the shortest time, of any major motion picture release; though to be fair, such rapid fire delivery was a Howard Hawks (the director) trademark (see "Bringing Up Baby" for a considerably less frenetic example).

For those who are unfamiliar with the film, Russel plays Hildy, a reporter who some years back (I don't recall exactly how many, I think it was two years) was married to, and subsequently divorced her editor Walter (Cary Grant); and then dropped off the face of the earth.

As the film opens, Hildy walks back into the newsroom she left some years before, and announces (or rather attempts to for several minutes of classic verbal interplay) to Walter that she is going to be remarried, to a rather boring insurance sales executive (named Bruce) played by Ralph Bellamy.

From there, as they say, hilarity ensues (and it is one of the funniest films of all time).

As I was reading the "oscar snub" post, it noted (as any mention of the movie does) the high speed interplay; and I of course went back to some of those moments in my head....

... and I had a thought...

I'm sure it's a thought that film students and film geeks have had a million times before, but I never really noticed it or thought about it before.

Hildy (Russel) and Walter (Grant), and all the reporters in the piece (and there are a dozen of them) all deliver their lines at that same lightning pace. All the cops in the film have a different, slightly slower cadence. All the politicians are slightly slower again (until they start literally "talking fast" to try and get out of trouble).

The slowest pacing of all however, is the delivery from Ralph Bellamy; so much so that it is clearly and distinctly noticeable; to the point where in his scenes with Grant, Walter is speaking five or six words to Bruces one.

Interestingly, when Hildy is speaking to Bruce, her pace slows down considerably; but it is still perhaps twice that of Bruce.

By the end of the film it is of course abundantly clear that Hildy and Bruce are so totally wrong for each other; and that, though clearly they will never have a "normal" relationship, Hildy and Walter are very much right for each other (and I wont go into any more detail to spoil the film for those unlucky souls who haven't seen it).

Now I've seen the movie a dozen times; and of course I had noted the pacing before; but the reason why I called this a "film school moment" was because up until ten minutes ago, I had never consciously thought "Hey, I bet Hawks contrasted Walter and Hildys pacing with Bruces, as a deliberate part of the characterization".

Such are the things that keep the rent paid at coffeehouses near film schools.

Disgusting and Creepy

Seriously, this imagery just gives me the creeps:


Now, look closer at the face of the little kid Obama there:

And this picture:


...

uhh...

A little transparent much?

Random Music for Friday

One of my favorite Who tunes:

The Skeptical Environmentalist Follows Up

A few years ago, Bjorn Lomborg wrote a book called "The Skeptical Environmentalist", where he heretically asserted that yes, climate change was a problem; but that it was a much smaller problem than pop culture presented, and that all the offered solutions were ineffective and uneconomical at best.

Basically that we can do a lot better good saving people from malaria, starvation, healthcare and education; for a lot less money.

In this interview with google, he discusses his thesis, and his followup book expanding on that thesis:

Oh and all his numbers come from before the UN IPCC was exposed as fraudulent, and the MAXIMUM impact of whatever elements of anthropogenic global warming are real, was revised from 5 degrees to about .5 degrees. This of course means that the value proposition is 10 times worse than Lomborg already notes.

Also, the ridiculous indoctrination of some of the commenters is amusing.

Note to Greg Gutfield...

Satire is better when it's funny.

That is all.

Well, I Knew It Had To Come Eventually...

I just received my first-ever jury summons.

February 11th, 8am.

Well, at least I'm already familiar with the Superior Courthouse in Phoenix, though I usually don't use that entrance...

Mel

A Hostile (or not) Audience for an Important Subject

An interesting video featuring Kyle Cassidy talking about his photographic collection "Armed America: Portraits of Gun Owners in Their Homes" (a book we own, featuring a couple people we know).

The interview is with Google, in New York city, so the audience isn't exactly what you'd expect to be favorable; but the reactions are interesting.

One thing I found illustrative, was the questioner at the 46 minute point. It's amazing how little some people understand. On the other hand, I quite liked the authors final remark.

Comfort Seeking Missile